AMERICANS AND THE CENSOR
By ROBERT POWELL
BRITISH press censorship, which has long had its critics in the home field, has recently come in for sharp comment trom foreign correspondents in London, particularly from American Pressmen, whose accounts of the system's defects have lacked nothing in downrightness. That such criticisms have been allowed to be transmitted to the ends of the earth clearly indicates a freedom on the part of the British authorities from any attempt to curb expression of opinion; and denotes a marked difference between censorship control here and in the Third Reich. Such a possibility would have been un- thinkable even in pre-war Nazi Germany, without its logical consequence of expulsion for the writer of such criticism. And in war-time, any statement as to the truth or emptiness of an official communiqué would probably have even more disastrous results.
But this point need not be stressed, since among free peoples it is only a contrast, never a comparison, which is made between totalitarian and democratic methods of censorship. It is inevitable that British censorship should be measured against a background of peace-time freedom of the Press, and not against the obvious shortcomings of the German, Italian, or Russian systems. Freedom of expression is acknowledged as the inalienable right of the Anglo-Saxon on both sides of the Atlantic ; censorship is alien to him, and its restrictions are irksome and repugnant to the journalist who has to heed them. It is an institution which the democrat would like to see removed altogether. Nevertheless, most people agree as to its being essential in war. Differences of opinion arise rather as to how it should function, particularly as to whether its powers are being used in the best interests of the nation, or merely to bolster up bureaucratic inefficiency or shortsightedness. In a free democracy the greatest justification for a 'press censor- ship is that it exists to prevent the publication of news which might be dangerous to democracy's very existence as consti- tuting information valuable to the enemy.
It should be stated at once that the American correspondents' criticism has not been for the sake of obtaining that kind of information, but rather because it is felt that, within the legitimate limits of wartime freedom of expression, both the amount and nature of the information officially permitted to be disclosed immediately after any particular event could be considerably improved. The general attack has been on the ground that what has been withheld is already known to the enemy, so that withholding it performs no good service, but simply produces annoyance and irritation. This applies especially to the refusal to permit the publication of the names of bombed towns and to the playing down in earliest reports of the damage done during any specific raid. Outstanding cases were, of course, Coventry and Birmingham. Other complaints have been of a more technical nature, particularly the alteration, or deletion from the correspondents' " copy," of details which seemed perfectly harmless and often had already appeared in the British Press—especially when such delays involved the missing of a special edition of their news- papers. Another complaint has been that certain events have been announced by the B.B.C. to the world in general through a prominent statesman or high officer before the American Press has had the opportunity of getting this news across to the United States. - Analysing the situation more carefully, one sees that the fundamental divergence of outlook between the censors and the Press is accentuated in the case of the American journalist by the thoroughness and zeal with which he prosecutes his job. His great aim is to give his newspaper what it wants, and to this he so often adds a touch of sensationalism which is alien to British journalism in general. Such a combination leads to a situation in which on the one hand are the British Govern- ment and people waging a war which they consider to be a life-and-death struggle for the defence of that which is best in our civilisation ; on the other hand, the American Pressman, who, though he may also share this view, is first and foremost a reporter of events and trends, and who considers it to be his primary task to get over the news to his editor's desk as quickly as possible.
Nowadays the European war, particularly the German bombing of Britain, is an outstanding topic in the United States, and so his editors are continuously cabling the correspondent here for fullest details immediately of what is happening, or is rumoured to be happening. In his eagerness to comply the American Pressman often gives the impression that what is happening here is primarily a first-class show which must be covered as speedily as possible. No complaint can be made about this, though it is clear that the difference between the outlook in British and American journalism accentuates the position, especially in abnormal times like the present. Whereas the former paints in shades of grey, the latter generally uses a very broad canvas on which only extremes of black and white appear. The British news report is to the United States reader a mass of understatement, while the American's graphic language is■ sensationalism to us. Whatever the merits or demerits of both methods—the ideal lies somewhere in between—in war- time such a sensational form of writing naturally suffers at the hands of a British censor of the " understatement " school. It is not unfair also to add that certain American Press descriptions of events over here have only with great difficulty been recognised by people who have themselves played a part in them.
Some of the dispatches of the American correspondents a few weeks ago were coloured by the annoyance which the censorship had caused them. Otherwise they would hardly have been talking of censorship here as being as " ominously oppressive " as it was in France before that country collapsed. The absurdity of such a criticism is exposed by the fact of their being allowed to criticise unhindered. For not only must it be conceded that, whatever Britain's faults, the intellec- tual black-out which covers most of Europe today has not reached our shores, but also that the British censorship authorities have no mandate to impose it.
It is interesting to note that American correspondents in their criticisms do not consider that the British control of news is due to anything other than some kind of stupidity, which appears unable to appreciate the fact that much inform- ation which is considered valuable to the enemy has already found its way to him. It is not of any kind of desire to tyrannise over the press but of a tendency to ignore its fundamental im- portance in the waging of this war that the American pressmen complain. " Sometimes silly but never sinister " is the description by which one of these critics recently summed up the situation. It is significant to note also that this same writer gave it as his opinion that, allowing for necessary delays in the transmission of certain items of information, he thought that the American reader did not miss much of what was going on here. Indirect evidence of this is supplied by the fact that one prominent American editor who rushed round Britain for less than a fortnight seeing everybody and everything and then hurried back to New York and wrote his " stories " in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty had little to add to w hat American correspondents here had already been allowed to send to their newspapers—except perhaps an extra dose of sensationalism.
Fortunately, the British censorship, despite certain blunders which not only the American but our own Press and Parliament here have publicly exposed, has not weakened the American newspaperman's confidence in our determination jealously to protect our reputation for strict veracity in official statements, even though the latter feels that too often under the plea of war conditions much less of the truth is told than safely could be.
In conclusion, the British public certainly owes a debt of gratitude to the American Press representatives here because of their stand for as much freedom of expression as conditions will permit, particularly as the problem is so often that of defending the frontiers of civil liberty against encroachments of military censorship and of preventing the development of the idea that a free Press is simply a burdensome survival from peace-time which should be effaced in war.
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